Author: Owenson, Sydney
Biography:
OWENSON, Sydney, later Lady Morgan (1778?-1859: ODNB)
ODNB notes that although she was baptized in 1783, the year of her birth was most probably 1778. She was born in Dublin, the elder of two daughters of the Irish actor Robert Owenson and his English wife Jane Hill. Until 1789, when her mother died, she was educated at home, in part by Tom Dermody (q.v.), a tutor who was scarcely older than she was. Later she attended private schools. From 1798 to 1812 she was employed as a governess or paid companion by Irish gentry and established herself as a popular writer--mainly of novels on Irish themes, but also of verse and non-fiction prose. Her best-known work, The Wild Irish Girl (1806), made her a celebrity in Dublin. In 1812 she married Sir Thomas Charles Morgan (d 1843), family physician to the Marquess of Abercorn. Their primary residence was in Dublin until 1837, when they moved to London. They had no children but, as Lady Morgan, she produced five more novels and several substantial books of travel, history, and biography, some in collaboration with her husband. (The attribution of The Mohawks to them is questionable.) In 1837 she was granted a civil-list pension for services to literature--the first woman awarded such recognition. She left her papers to the Editor of The Athenaeum (to which she had been a occasional contributor), William Hepworth Dixon, who edited them as Lady Morgan's Memoirs in 1862. (ODNB 22 May 2020) SR
Other Names:
- Miss Owenson
- Sidney Owenson
- Lady Morgan